Carranza Obituary

The End of an Era; The End of an Esmeraldero

Don Victor Carranza, known in Colombia for decades as ‘The Emerald Czar,’ died Thursday April 4, 2013 due to complications from cancer of the lungs and prostate. Don Victor was the most colorful and recognized name in the world of emeralds for the last 50 years.

Born 1935 near Guateque, Boyaca near the emerald mine of Chivor, he was drawn early into the emerald world. Stone by stone, the emeralds of Chivor taught him the rudiments of the emerald life: dig for or buy emeralds, sell aggressively, and show no weakness. The emerald path led him east away from Chivor and to the mountaintop mine of Peñas Blancas. Beginning in the early 1960’s a fabulous bonanza there changed his life forever. Soon his name was included among the most powerful in the region: The Molinas, the Murcias, Don Pacho Vargas, Efraín Gonzales, the Quinteros and the Silvas. The government was hardly present in this remote region and the few soldiers, representatives and engineers that were there took up shovels at night, swept along by the rush of prospectors and the intoxication of riches underground. One incredible vein of emeralds that started only a few feet from the surface yielded millions and millions of dollars worth of emeralds, requiring years to follow its opulent and winding path underground.

Though he was rich in emeralds, Victor Carranza was able to rise above his peers and affirm his power with the help of an old school-friend Juan Beetar who reappeared in his life after the Peñas Blancas mine bonanza died down. Just as Carranza was comfortable with air hammers and calcite veins, power struggles and guns, Beetar was in his element with lawyers, accountants and government offices. Together they formed an integral part of the next big thing in the emerald world: the Muzo Mine.

The rise of Muzo as the premier emerald mine saw Carranza ascend in power and notoriety to the point that sometime in the late 1980’s the term “Emerald Czar” began to be used to describe him. With the help of Beetar he legalized and consolidated his power at Muzo and at the same time led the mining operations with an amazing degree of success; a success born of a remarkable intuition and feel for the underground. He could direct the bulldozers to find emeralds with unmatched skill and precision. Then, in the 90’s when engineering and environmental concerns moved the mining from the surface to deep tunnels, Carranza gave new meaning to the word ‘guaquero’ (digger for treasure) when he would direct tunnels and shafts to the richest zones, often personally working full shifts underground. In commenting about his prowess as a guaquero he said, “The emeralds follow me.”

Carranza was revered by many but in reality not too many people loved him – rather they feared him. They feared the often ruthless execution of his power, which during the emerald wars of the late 1980‘s and early 1990‘s, was immense. I remember people not daring to mention his name in conversation lest a spy of his would track them down. Upon uttering the word “him” their eyes would search mine, seeking agreement or amelioration of the fear. Many of us still cannot voice certain things we witnessed: things like the repercussions of disagreeing with him on important issues. Things like hired assassins showing up to deliver the immense simplicity of annihilation. Yes, killers!

Having said the above, I hasten to add that the power he wielded was critical in responding fiercly to the threat of losing Muzo to the Medellin cocaine cartel at the beginning of the emerald wars. Drug lord Pablo Escobar’s partner Gacha Rodriguez wanted to take over the emerald mines. Muzo was not only useful to Pablo Escobar as a way to launder drug money but it was a trophy: the world’s most exotic emerald mine. The emerald region quickly turned into a war zone while fear and tension overcame Bogotá. Carranza’s role, in this instance, was that of a hero. The paramilitary army he assembled faced down the threat of Escobar and Rodriguez and, in 1991, put them on the run (they were killed in 1993). Carranza stayed in Colombia to face the Medellin cartel while many other emerald leaders escaped to Miami or Switzerland to wait out the war. Carranza was often criticized for having an illegal army and for working with other paramilitary leaders but it must be remembered: he not only repelled the attacks of the cartel, but it saved Muzo and led to the demise of Escobar and Gacha Rodriguez.

Carranza’s illegal army, in the years after the emerald wars, did not disband but rather got bigger and this led to his being imprisoned for 3 years in 1998.

To call Victor Carranza the king of emeralds is not enough; a king is too limited. His power was implemented in the way a czar would exercise power: through ruthlessness, impunity, fear and unpredictable ferociousness; just exactly the type of power that was required to control the fierce brawlers of the Muzo emerald region (after all these were the men who faced and then repelled the attacks of the Medellin Cartel’s mafia hit-men and soldiers). Emerald miners in Boyacá were and are untamed and un-conquered; and their region, the emerald mining region of western Boyacá, was without Colombian army presence all the way up until 2009. These men would walk right over a “king,” devour a “representative,” and would murder a “committee”…no, they needed a czar. And as a czar Carranza ruled for five decades – he will never be replaced, and will be remembered in number of ways, many of them negative.

As a mover of the international emerald business, Carranza was ineffective and detrimental. He didn’t know market prices and sold by intimidation. He ignored the town of Muzo and let the town and its inhabitants to languish in poverty. He purposely left the road to Muzo in decay to keep outsiders away. His men lived under immense pressure and fear. His whims changed lives, often for the worse. Yes he was an adverse leader; but as a figurehead he was preeminent; unsurpassed – his confidence and presence symbolized and manifested the emerald allure, much as the coffee industry’s one and only Juan Valdez represented the coffee growers.

His style of leadership reminds me of that of another man who was an imposing figurehead but an inept leader: Enzo Ferrari, the founder of the Ferrari automobile marquee. Read these words from the Nikki Lauda book about Formula One racing in the 1970’s:

…for all this, Enzo Ferrari was thoroughly capable of the most unadulterated schmaltz and prone to criticizing and threatening like a latterday D’Annunzio. When it was time to motivate his employees in the course of the so-called ‘Annual Address’ – his imagery would run to ‘oaths of loyalty’ and the ‘forging the weapons of ultimate victory’. He deliberately pressured his hired race drivers and encouraged rivalries and antagonism.

Enzo Ferrari tended to live in a world of his own, totally dependent on information supplied by his lackeys and gleaned from the press. The upshot was that there was always furor, paranoia and rancor at Ferrari.

He always made sure that he was kept continuously in the picture at the factory, even though he never came up with any technical advice. In a situation like this, it was clearly imperative to speak directly to Ferrari and to circumvent his lackeys and informers. In the final analysis, all he really knew about the world of racing and engineering was based on snippets of information fed to him by his ‘sources.’ Keeping the Old Man happy was often more important than engineering technique per se. He wasn’t a leader, nor was he easily approachable: but he was the Lord and one feared His wrath.

Another book, The Limit by Michael Cannel adds more context: “Enzo Ferrari handled company affairs iwith a prima donna’s repertoire of belittling, sulks, browbeating, threats, castigations, walkouts, curses, lawsuits and recriminations. The team was in a constant state of hysteria.

As with Ferrari, Carranza’s managers had little power – all decisions were his. In recent meetings with exporters and emerald brokers Don Victor was unaware of the importance of brand, reputation or marketing. He was known to say “emeralds will sell themselves” and never allowed budgeting for international

advertising.

In 2012, like many men of advanced age, Victor Carranza tried to “polish” his reputation by allowing himself to be filmed by Al Jazeera journalists walking hand in hand with his wife and claiming that he brokered the peace accord of 1991 in Chiquinquira (that accord sealed the end of the emerald wars). In reality the peace accord belongs to the many people of the region whose collective desires for peace were reflected through church and government leaders.

In other interviews he denied so many bad deeds, and blamed others for things he was accused of, that it irritated a number of people serving time in prisons around Colombia. These prisoners, ex-paramilitary fighters, former gangsters and killers, began calling out crimes Carranza participated in for which they were serving time. This resentment among the villainous associates of Carranza started a wave of what can be best described as karma: two sensational and well publicized attempts on his life in 2011 and 2012 followed by the killing of Mercedes Chaparro, one of his administrators in the emerald mining region in August. Later in October 2012 Hernando Sanchez, mine owner and partner in various ventures with Victor Carranza, was shot six times. Sanchez survived and is recovered but the onslaught against Carranza recently culminated in the taking, for three intense hours, of his emerald mine Cunas on the banks of the Minero river. Twenty-five masked and armed men swarmed and overtook by force the mine camp, offices and employees. An administrator was forced to open the safe and the mine production of the previous three weeks was robbed. Such was the recent wave of violence against a violent man.

Don Victor would like the world to think that all the violence thrown against him is the result of his immense crime-fighting goodness; rather like Batman who is such a force of good that the evil-doers all want to kill him. But such fantasy only happens in movies; the real reason that bad men and killers want to murder Victor Carranza is that he was most likely one of them and when he suddenly betrayed and inculpated them, they went after him; especially when he dared to show the weakness of growing old.

Carranza is survived by his wife Isabel and five sons. From orchestrating the defense of Muzo in 1989 to fielding accusations of kidnapping and paramilitarism in the last decade, his legend will now only grow. But he has also left a power vacuum by his demise and many expectations in Colombia’s emerald industry are swirling as to how control and organization at the mines will develop.